I have enough pets already...

...let alone Pet PEEVES!

How's that for a segue? Wocka wocka wocka.

Work related pet peeves:
1. People who staple their checks to their invoices. Don't put staples in checks. Duh.

2. Bill payment envelopes that aren't as big as a Quickbooks check. I'm trying to pay you people! I should not have to do origami just to mail you a check!! I'm looking specifically you, Chase Visa. YOU!

Not work related, necessarily:
1. Bad drivers. I am SO lucky to work approximately 9 minutes (3.6 miles) from home. And I'm never going anywhere during rush hour. I'm still at home in the morning, and I'm still at work in the evening. I really do not have to deal with bad traffic, and Nashville has its fair share. But I'm telling you, it's a good thing I don't, because my road rage shows no end. Jenny and Patrick pointed out that drivers in Nashville are much worse than in NY (which you think of as having crazy drivers, right?) because in NY, you know that if you do anything stupid, someone will HIT you and KILL you and it will be YOUR fault. In Nashville, people just amble through red lights, turn left from the right lane, abuse the suicide lane, wander around in blind spots, because they KNOW that other drivers are just going to get out of their way. I remember my dad, when he was teaching me to drive, telling me about defensive driving (I barely heard him over the roar of my own eye rolling). I had to assume that EVERY other driver on the road was just about to do something stupid, and therefore prepare myself for avoiding the entire situation. I thought, at the time, "Geez, I can't pay attention to what every other car is doing, all the time! They aren't going to do anything wrong. Besides, I have cassettes to change and lipstick to put on. I don't have time." But it turns out, he was RIGHT. I think about this all the time. That car at the cross street in front of me? Guaranteed to pull out in front of me. The car entering the interstate on my right? Guaranteed to want to merge to my left, whether or not I'm in the way. I'm kind of amazed at how right my dad was. Should I tell him? Probably not.

2. Body hair removal. Ya'll know I'm a glamourpuss. I'm never going to go all granola on you and stop shaving, I promise. But seriously. Why does this have to be something that is going to take up a significant portion of my shower time for the rest of my life? I know, there is always electrolysis. I'm never going to be able to afford that. In the meantime, I'm so BORED with shaving my underarms that I can't even put it into words.

3. Inappropriate punctuation. My mom is an English teacher. I'm a little sensitive to the world of grammar, at least more than the average yayhoo. But quote marks around words that are not being quoted, and apostrophes in words that don't belong to anyone or aren't being contracted, drive me up the wall. The day I interviewed for my job, I found the office (in a big warehouse in an industrial district) and the name of the business was on the front door in quote marks "Business X". You can imagine how I reconsidered opening that door. And how I have reconsidered it, daily, since then. There is no such thing as chicken wing's. The only appropriate use of washer's is if you were talking about something that belongs to said washer. Misused commas (and even colons and semicolons) are forgivable; most of the time you can see that the writer thinks they are clarifying something with that comma. Bad punctuation: it's a disease, particularly of East Nashville signage. I'll post some pictures someday.

4. Animals in clothing. Most of you know this already. I have big issues with costumed animals. I believe that this stems, initially, from my much bigger issues with monkeys. Don't like them. Not comfortable with them. Don't think videos of monkeys (monkies?) doing human things are funny. Don't think posters of monkeys wearing three piece suits are amusing. I really don't think that monkeys in the jungle are okay, but it's not my right to judge them in their natural habitat. But when people mess with monkeys? That's when I start to have a real problem. There was a monkey with a music box at the wharf in Monterey, when I was a kid, and if you gave him a penny he'd take it from you and play a song. I'm sure I found this endlessly amusing when I was 4. Now I just think it is unnatural, and beyond that, I PROMISE you that is NOT how that monkey would like to be behaving. I get sadder when I see a dog with a homeless man than when I just see a homeless man. That guy can't take care of that dog. And inevitably the dog is wearing a jacket or a bandanna, probably as part of a panhandling racket ("Look how cute my dog's outfit is. Gimme some money for beer."). I hate it all. The horses with carriages downtown, wearing sunhats. That horse doesn't want to wear that hat! I know I have friends who put their animals in Halloween costumes, and I forgive you, but please don't show me pictures. I can't take it.

5. Fake sugar. I can pick it out a mile away, in anything, and I won't eat it. No diet sodas, no snacky cakes in green boxes, no chewing gum that makes your mouth cold, and no sugar-free ice cream (honestly). I know that high-fructose corn syrup is making our nation (and me, eventually) obese, but surely Aspertame and sucralose are even worse. It is an ARTIFICIAL ingredient and it will make you eat too much of whatever it is you're eating because you just don't get enough pleasure from a small bite. Blech.

I just ended up on the phone with my mom for like an hour and ran out of focus on this topic. I'm sure I'll think of other things to say, and that's not nearly my standard fake sugar rant, so hang in there for me. We've still got 21 days of the NaBloming to go.